Will they support Trump?
Federal GOP candidates discuss their views of the presidential nominee
As election season enters full swing with Labor Day just around the corner, some Republican legislators and candidates from this region are still on the fence about whether they will support GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Senate hopeful Katie McGinty, a Democrat who is gunning for the seat of U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., in Washington, D.C., has aligned her opponent with the views of Trump.
In release after release from McGinty’s campaign, she addresses the Trump-Pence-Toomey ticket as dangerous to women, a risk to national security and like-minded “tea party” candidates who have championed policies that have “impoverished Americans.”
But, where does this conjoined ticket come from? Clearly the Republican U.S. senator from Pennsylvania would be one of 100 in the legislative chamber to work directly with the president, yet Toomey has not formally endorsed Trump. The closest to that he came was when he made the statement to CBS: “I do want to spend a little more time watching and listening.” But, a formal endorsement may never come. On Wednesday, Toomey campaign spokesman Ted Kwong said the senator’s stance on a Trump endorsement remains the same — “Nothing has changed,” he said. Toomey went so far as to call Trump’s remarks about the Mexican heritage of federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel as “deeply offensive.”
In May, Toomey published an open letter in the Philadelphia Inquirer giving advice directly to Trump saying he was not his “first, second, or third choice.” Toomey endorsed U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., when he was still in the presidential race and later voted for U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in the primary.
“In short, I find (Trump’s) candidacy highly
“When Donald Trump makes one of his more outrageous statements, if you go and hide, the voters see that. It’s not good enough to hide in the corner.” — David Landau, chairman, Delaware County Democratic Party
problematic,” Toomey wrote.
Yet, McGinty has relied heavily on comparing Toomey to Trump as the presidential candidate’s numbers have wavered in the weeks after the Democratic National Convention.
“When Donald Trump makes one of his more outrageous statements, if you go and hide, the voters see that,” said David Landau, chairman of the Delaware County Democratic Party. “It’s not good enough to hide in the corner.”
Where U.S. House Candidates Stand
Political endorsements are largely part of the invisible primary process where the party frontrunners typically emerge, which this year was made an example of with the superdelegates and their influence in the Democratic nomination process of Hillary Clinton over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. The UCLA School of Political Parties has found a correlation between endorsements and the success a candidate sees in the primaries.
Early endorsements from politicians who live in states where early primaries occurred could help a candidate gain an early advantage and with that comes success, name recognition, additional donors and more airtime, all of which helped Trump win the nomination.
However, many Pennsylvania GOP politicians in this region skipped the Republican National Convention in Cleveland last month, including Toomey, U.S. Rep Pat Meehan, R-7, of Chadds Ford, U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts, R-16, of East Marlborough, U.S. Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, R-8, of Levittown, and U.S. Rep. Ryan Costello, R-6, of West Goshen. Pitts and Fitzpatrick are retiring at the end of this year. State Sen. Lloyd Smucker, R-13, of Lampeter, is the GOP candidate running for Pitts’ seat in the 16th Congressional District. And Mike Fitzpatrick’s brother, Brian Fitzpatrick, is running for the 8th Congressional District seat.
Although Costello did not attend the convention, he still intends to support Trump, according to his campaign officials.
Costello “intends to vote for the Republican nominee in November,” according to a statement by Vince Galko, a senior adviser to Costello’s re-election campaign, that was released in June. “Congressman Costello’s position on the presidential race has not changed,” Galko said in an email on Tuesday. “His focus remains on serving his constituents and running an aggressive campaign highlighting his independent, effective leadership for communities across the 6th Congressional District.” Galko did not directly answer a question about whether or not Costello plans to endorse Trump.
Costello is running against Democrat Mike Parrish of Willistown. The 6th District encompasses portions of Berks, Chester, Lebanon and Montgomery counties.
Digital First Media attempted to reach Smucker’s campaign for comments, but received no response. However, according to an article in LNP, a daily newspaper in Lancaster County, Smucker is “supporting the Republican nominee because he knows that person is better equipped than Hillary Clinton to handle the many pressing issues facing our country,” according to a statement from his campaign manager Zachary Peirson. However, Smucker has not endorsed Trump, and Peirson did not respond to repeated questions about whether Smucker will vote for Trump in November, according to the article.
Smucker is running against Democrat Christina Hartman of Lancaster and Libertarian Shawn House of Columbia. The 16th District covers portions of Chester, Lancaster and Berks counties.
Brian Fitzpatrick offered a statement to Digital First Media short of an endorsement for Trump, but laid out who he’d be voting for in the general election.
“Given that he is more likely to surround himself with a national security team that better understands our national security threats and how those threats can be defeated, and given that he has committed to ending the unfair trade deals that have killed American manufacturing and have devastated the middle class, including in my hometown of Levittown, he presents the better alternative to Secretary Clinton in these two critical areas, national security and economic growth, and I will be voting accordingly,” Fitzpatrick said.
Brian Fitzpatrick is running against state Rep. Steve Santarsiero, D-31, of Lower Makefield, in the 8th District race. The 8th District consists of all of Bucks County and part of Montgomery County.
“I’d like to be able to vote for Donald Trump, but he hasn’t earned my vote,” Meehan said, who asserted he would not vote for Hillary Clinton. “I need to hear more specifics from him on the issues, on how he will improve economic opportunities for middle class Americans, strengthen relationships with our NATO allies against Russia, and rein in an out-of-control Washington, to name just a few. And he needs to better demonstrate an ability to lead and unite our country.”
Meehan is running against Democrat Mary Ellen Balchunis of Haverford. The 7th District encompasses portions of Berks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Lancaster counties.
Experts Weigh In
But, at this point of the race, maybe those endorsements don’t matter as much.
“Endorsements are very much useless, it’s basically meaningless,” said Andy Reilly, chairman of the Delaware County Republican Party. “Does it make a huge difference? No. Most people are getting their information on the president from social media.”
Reilly said that since George H. W. Bush won Pennsylvania in 1988, that Pennsylvania has gone blue in every election since, even when the son, George W. Bush, won in 2000 and 2004.
“It’s generally conventional wisdom that Pennsylvania is out of play,” Reilly said.
Yet, that doesn’t mean that Pennsylvania doesn’t need to stay competitive, not by a longshot. In the U.S. Senate, the Republicans hold a slim majority — 54 Republicans, 44 Democrats, and two Independents who vote with the liberal caucus — with the battle between McGinty and Toomey seen as a key election for the Republicans.
The Republicans also hold majority in Pennsylvania — 31-19 in the state Senate, 119-84 in the state House of Representatives — and aim to maintain that majority to stave off budgetary adjustments by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf.
“I’m confident our ticket has cross appeal,” Reilly said of ticket splitters who may avoid pulling the party lever in November, but will vote for state and local Republican candidates.
John Kennedy, an associate professor of political science at West Chester University, said it’s not that unusual to see congressional candidates distance themselves from presidential candidates during an election year in which the party’s presidential nominee is unpopular or doesn’t
seem likely to win. He said that during the failed presidential campaigns of Walter Mondale in 1984 and Michael Dukakis in 1988, the Democrats who held a majority in Congress and many state legislatures were very adept at separating their own campaigns from the presidential races.
Kennedy said Republican congressional candidates in southeastern Pennsylvania are walking a tightrope because they don’t want to alienate their base, but they also don’t want to lose support from moderate Republicans, as Trump appears to be doing. He said this area of the state is more of a battleground than other parts, but some polls are showing Trump behind Clinton by as much as 40 points in the Philadelphia suburbs. The potential for a big loss by Trump is causing Republican candidates to put some distance between his candidacy and theirs, he said.
“The candidates want to run independent,” Kennedy said. “They don’t want to get caught in Trump’s undertow if he loses big.”
Kennedy said that task is doable for Republican incumbents like Costello and Meehan because they already have their own independent records as politicians. But there is potential for some surprises in openseat races, such as the 16th District, where Republicans still have the advantage of higher registration numbers, but the margin of difference is not as big as it used to be.
He said the 8th District, which has another openseat race, is Pennsylvania’s only congressional district that wasn’t gerrymandered, and it’s the most competitive district in the whole state. If Trump loses big in the Philadelphia suburbs, it will be hard for Brian Fitzpatrick to overcome that, even with the positive name identification from his brother who currently holds the seat.
However, Kennedy said the situation is a bit different for Toomey because the Senate race is statewide, instead of in a specific district, so even if Trump does poorly in the southeastern part of the state, he could potentially help Toomey if he does better in the southwestern part of the state. He said ticket splitting – voting for a presidential candidate from one party and downballot candidates from another party – could help Toomey, but it may not be enough if Trump loses Pennsylvania by 10 points or more. There tends to be less ticket splitting now, compared to past decades, he added.
Landau called the distancing of Republican legislators from the nominee “running scared” and being “wishy washy.”
“I don’t have any respect for elected officials who aren’t saying anything,” Landau said. “(They’re saying) ‘I support the nominee,’ but they’re speaking in circles and the voters will see that.”